Darkness the Vampire’s Double: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla
Darkness in Le Fanu's Carmilla serves as its own monster since it is a representation of negativity, mystery, and fear. Darkness like the vampire creates an unsettling sensation for the narrative because it allows the uncanny to manifest and generate feelings of uncertainty and terror. For the main protagonist Laura, the overwhelming experience of darkness places the character in a state of distress which creates problems for her mental and physical wellbeing. “I felt the same lassitude and languor weighed upon me. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and somehow, not unwelcome, possession of me.” (pg50) This type of darkness …show more content…
Darkness also establishes ill effects because its connection has no association whatsoever with perception, judgment, or visual objects. If we cannot decipher, what is creating the terror we feel and are not able to form clear ideas of the danger we sense, this can lead to violent reactions to one’s state of mind. For example, the visual apparition that Laura encounters in the dark creates stress in her consciousness because the feeling of being preyed upon by the unknown, in the dark, generates a convulsive motion which robs her mind of all its power of acting and reasoning. Also, since anxiety is, in a sense, fear activated by our thoughts Laura’s psyche is reacting to the symptoms of an aggressively boosting darkness which hold more negative sensations and operates in a manner that resembles actual pain. “It was very dark, and I saw something moving round the foot of the bed, which at first I could not distinguish.” Also, begins to cause panic because everything becomes magnified as the darkness starts to take on the form of an object of terror leaving Laura helpless as she cannot fight what she cannot
Darkness in Le Fanu's Carmilla serves as its own monster since it is a representation of negativity, mystery, and fear. Darkness like the vampire creates an unsettling sensation for the narrative because it allows the uncanny to manifest and generate feelings of uncertainty and terror. For the main protagonist Laura, the overwhelming experience of darkness places the character in a state of distress which creates problems for her mental and physical wellbeing. “I felt the same lassitude and languor weighed upon me. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and somehow, not unwelcome, possession of me.” (pg50) This type of darkness …show more content…
Darkness also establishes ill effects because its connection has no association whatsoever with perception, judgment, or visual objects. If we cannot decipher, what is creating the terror we feel and are not able to form clear ideas of the danger we sense, this can lead to violent reactions to one’s state of mind. For example, the visual apparition that Laura encounters in the dark creates stress in her consciousness because the feeling of being preyed upon by the unknown, in the dark, generates a convulsive motion which robs her mind of all its power of acting and reasoning. Also, since anxiety is, in a sense, fear activated by our thoughts Laura’s psyche is reacting to the symptoms of an aggressively boosting darkness which hold more negative sensations and operates in a manner that resembles actual pain. “It was very dark, and I saw something moving round the foot of the bed, which at first I could not distinguish.” Also, begins to cause panic because everything becomes magnified as the darkness starts to take on the form of an object of terror leaving Laura helpless as she cannot fight what she cannot